1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to content processing. More particularly, the present invention relates to methods and systems for processing content to facilitate the analysis of content.
2. Background Art
Audience ratings data for content, such as Nielsen Ratings, are critical tools for measuring audience size and for determining the composition of content programming on television. Moreover, advertisers heavily rely on such content ratings when deciding to purchase advertising time from television networks.
Modernly, such audience ratings data for content can be collected using electronic devices, which can be connected to every television in a selected home. The devices can gather the viewing habits of the home and transmit the information through a phone line to a database. The devices can provide audience ratings data on a minute-by-minute basis, providing the exact moment viewers change channels. Such minute-by-minute audience ratings data can be used, for example, by audience researchers, audience response researchers, and production executives to analyze changes in audience ratings for the content during particular periods of the content.
However, the analysis of content using minute-by-minute audience ratings data can be very tedious and difficult. For example, each time the audience ratings data indicates a sudden drop in the size of the viewing audience, the content must be advanced to the time period of the content corresponding to the sudden drop in audience ratings data to discover the reasons for the sudden drop. Considering that networks can have vast amounts of content requiring such analysis, the analysis of content using minute-by-minute audience ratings data can be extremely time consuming and costly.
Thus, there exists a strong need in the art for methods and systems that increase the efficiency of the analysis of audience ratings for content.